Super Street Fighter IV In-Depth

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The country's best player dishes on Juri, Dee Jay, and shares his thoughts on Smash Bros.

By Michael Thomsen

There are few games that can inspire the same intensity and knowledge in their fans as Street Fighter. Capcom has put a big emphasis on connecting with its most hardcore fans over the last couple of years, and, following the recent announcement of Super Street Fighter IV, they were in New York hosting a "Fight Club" to give fans a glimpse of the future. Capcom commandeered a chic SoHo skate shop to show off the newest build of Tatsunoko vs Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars and the original Street Fighter IV. Fans brave enough to head into the cramped basement were treated to a hands-off demo of Super Street Fighter IV, featuring none other than Justin Wong, AKA the greatest Street Fighter tournament player on the continent. What does Justin think of the new characters? Find out below!

"...I feel like she's a character with a lot of tricks and has one of the prettiest ultra's in the game." -- Justin Wong

IGN: So you were here doing a Super Street Fighter IV demo. What characters did you play as?

Justin Wong: I was playing as Juri, the new character.

IGN: How is she? What's she like?

Justin Wong: She's very unique, she's not like any other Street Fighter character that Capcom has ever made. She's a Korean character and her style is maybe like Kim Kapwhan, a King of Fighters character from SNK. She has a lot more tricks. She has a purple aura with her moves. She's a fast character but with low life because she's so fast. But other than that I feel like she's a character with a lot of tricks and has one of the prettiest ultra's in the game.

IGN: What are some of her tricks?

Justin Wong: She's mainly a kick-based move character. She has a counter where if you hit her when she can counter, she does a dash—not like where it hits you, it's more like she can dash behind you, she can hit you in the air, or she can just back away. So that's one of her tactical ways to actually get around stuff. Her special moves lead into knockdowns, and it takes a lot of life. Her super won't be popular, mainly, in my opinion, she'll be based off EX meters and EX moves. She has a divekick in the air, which makes her rushdown more tricky. You can connect her EX divekick with her ultra. Right now she has three ways to connect her ultras. She can do a jump-medium punch into ultra. She can do an EX divekick in the air into ultra. Or she can do an EX quarter-circle-forward kick into ultra.

IGN: Who do you imagine being the best characters to counter her right now?

Justin Wong: Maybe Sagat. Sagat will still beat her in my opinion.

IGN: Have you played any of the other new characters in the game?

Justin Wong: I played Dee Jay. I think Dee Jay impressed me as a character more than Juri because they actually gave him a lot of tools in this game to make him really good. When he was first released in Super Street Fighter, I didn't like him. But when Street Fighter IV came out, I thought if Dee Jay was in the game he would be a good Street Fighter IV character because the style he had in the other game was as a Street Fighter IV character.

IGN: So he's the same style but the nature of the game has changed to suit his original style?

Justing Wong: Yeah, and they also gave him some new tweaks where he's able to connect his ultra through a lot of stuff. He actually does a lot of damage too so that makes it better. And his fireball's just like Guile's, it's really fast. It's going to be really tough to fight Dee Jay, in my opinion.

IGN: What are some of his most damaging moves?

Justin Wong: He can do crouching-strong into—you hold back two seconds and press forward two kicks, that's his EX move, two-hit kick move. It stuns your opponent in the ground, so right there you have enough time to charge and do an ultra. So just the fact that you can connect his ultra form the ground makes it a lot better.

IGN: Have you played any of the original characters from the Street Fighter IV? Are there any balance tweaks that you can talk about?

Justin Wong: No, I don't think they're talking about that yet.

IGN: What about T. Hawk, have you played him yet?

Justin Wong: No, I think they're doing a demo of him later tonight.

IGN: How big a part of your life is Street Fighter now, especially now that IV is out?

Justin Wong is currently the best SFIV player in the States.

Justin Wong: I travel a lot more because of Street Fighter IV. I get more income because there are more tournaments now and sponsors are putting in more prize money. There'll be guaranteed $5,000 or guaranteed $4,000 for a tournament. That helps me to not need to have a regular day job. I just travel around the country and people pay for my ticket and I just play Street Fighter. So Street Fighter is a big part of my life.

IGN: How long have you been able to do this full time?

Justin Wong: I've been doing this for ten years now. If it works for me now, it'll still work for me in the future.

IGN: Do you have a regular training routine, day-in and day-out?

Justin Wong: Yeah, I practice my combos. I do my combo's a hundred times to make sure I can get one hundred percent when I do them. Also I go to sessions, go to arcades. It's mainly just to keep getting experience. Traveling more, you get more experience, you won't get nervous. People get nervous in tournaments so the more you travel the more you can conquer that and not get nervous anymore.

IGN: Have you played Tatsunoko vs. Capcom? What do you think of that?

Justin Wong: I played it earlier. I like the new characters. I like Tekkaman Blade, Zero, Joe the Condor. I'm going to play the game a lot. But it's going to be hard for that game to be in the competitive scene. Wii systems are not very tournament-worthy unless it's for Super Smash Bros.

Justin Wong: Smash Bros. is more like a family game and Street Fighter IV is actually a fighting game.

IGN: I would compare Street Fighter IV to chess. Do you think that's an accurate comparison? It's all about reading the person you're playing.

Justin Wong: Actually, I think it's more like rock-paper-scissors. If scissors beats paper, and paper beats rock, and rock beats scissors; it's just like Street Fighter IV. Ryu can beat this character, but this character can beat that character, and that character can beat Ryu. There's always going to be a counter. The best way for anyone to get past that is to stick it out with your character. You can just keep playing with your character and know how to fight the whole cast. Or you can play as the whole cast so you have an army to choose from when you play other people.